


Gilded Caging

by willowcabins



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:13:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowcabins/pseuds/willowcabins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyssa was never very good with friendship before Sara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gilded Caging

**Author's Note:**

> h/c bingo promt - "cages"

Sara is sick and shivering. Someone saves her; someone takes her in. “Save me,” she whispers, and a woman with dark hair and darker eyes brushes back her hair.

“I will,” she promises.

It takes weeks; Lin Yu has left Sara scared and infected. The current and the ocean were no match against her resistance, her _desire_ to live, but now that she is saved, she feels lost.

“My family thinks I am dead,” she tells Nyssa that evening. Nyssa smiles affectionately and offers Sara the cup of tea. Sara accepts the clay mug carefully, treasuring its warmth in her hand before she savours the tart taste.

“Most of the people here are dead. It helps us.” Sara nods. She knows what this place is; she does not need word explanations. She tilts her head, and looks around. “Death is an illusion,” Nyssa promises, and there is something behind her smile. She smiles, but there is a metallic reflection. Sara smiles back anyway.

Nyssa returns every evening, bearing food. Some days later, she has a surprise.

“Basilisk just came back from the US,” she explains, eyes sparking as she places down the plain box in front of Sara. Sara moves off her bed to sit in front of Nyssa, also cross leged.

“What is it?” She asks. Nyssa grins.

“Pop tarts,” she admits, guiltily. “I love pop tarts.” She pulls out the aluminum foil and shows Sara. She carefully opens one and splits the poptart in half, offering Sara half. Its blueberry flavour, and Nyssa makes no move to toast it, so Sara just eats it as well.

At home, Sara never really liked pop tarts. They were sugary and fattening and Laurel made amazing waffles anyway. She sometimes had them at sleepovers because they were banned from the Lance household, but now? This Sara, this new version of herself, bit into the sugary layer and nearly cries.

Nothing she had eaten for the last two and a half years had tasted as much like home as this refined breakfast food. Sara swallows heavily. Nyssa puts down her own half of the pop tart and scoots next to Sara.

“Are you okay?” She whispers.

“I’m fine,” Sara lies. Nyssa smiles and leans closer to Sara. Sara tenses, wary, but Nyssa just cups her cheek affectionately.

“You still feel cold,” she murmurs. Sara bites her lip.

“I am still cold,” she admits. She wakes up at night, shivering, dreaming of drowning. She wakes up, clawing her throat, crying for land. She wakes up, and she is here.

“You will not be cold anymore,” Nyssa promises. Sara smiles, almost weakly, and Nyssa leans over and kisses her, chastely. That night, Nyssa lies next to Sara, holding her. It is platonic, but when Sara wakes up she feels safe. She curls into Nyssa, and waits until the sun comes up.

 

“My father says you are to train,” Nyssa tells her in the morning. Sara splashes her face with water and nods.

“Okay,” she says, and Nyssa grins, excited. Sara feels like she accepted a proposal or something. They leave Sara’s cell and walk into a large training arena. Later Sara will find out that it was empty because she and Nyssa got there at 10am, which is late, according to the League of Assassins.

Sara is placed in front of Nyssa and given a bowl of water. “Hit the water,” Nyssa instructs, sitting down at the other end of the table and watching Sara. Sara stares, confused. Nyssa nods towards the bowl again.

“Hit the water in the bowl,” she repeats. “With a flat hand,” she adds as Sara balls her fist as if to punch the water. Sarah begins to hit the bowl of water. She establishes a rhythm. It takes exactly 28 hits of water to empty the bowl. Every time the bowl is empty, Nyssa stands up and slowly walks from one end of the table to the other. Then she fills the bowl.

“You follow orders well,” she says quietly as Sara gets ready to hit the next bowl.

“What do you mean?” Sara asks, not stopping.

“Most men ask ‘why?!’ when we make them do this exercise.”

“I am not a man.” Nyssa’s lips quirk upwards in a subtle half smile.

“Women too.”

“Sometimes, the question ‘why’ has no place in the conversation,” Sara says doggedly. The question why had no place on the freighter or the island. Why would Nan Phet be any different? Nyssa nods, approving. Then she tilts her head.

“Yes, but is that because you already know, or because you don’t want to know?” She asks. Sara has emptied another bowl of water. Nyssa gets up to fill it.

“I already know,” Sara says defiantly. Nyssa raises an eyebrow.

“How?” She asks, quietly, pouring water carefully with the ornate jug.

“This exercise takes discipline, patience and building strength through repetition,” Sara explains with a shrug. “I inferred,” she adds with a smile when Nyssa looks to ask another question. Nyssa smiles.

“You see the bigger picture;” she says calmly, sitting back down again and putting her feet up on the table. The statement is phrased as a compliment and Sara tilts her head. She stops hitting the water wearily.

“It’s easy to see,” she explains carefully

“Unlearn that skill,” Nyssa says, putting her feet up on the table.

“Unlearn the ability to anticipate the whole picture?” Sara repeats, disbelieving, continuing with the water slapping.

“Clients don’t like that,” Nyssa says simply.

“A smaller bigger picture then?” Sara asks, tilting her head again. Nyssa grins.

“That, they do like.”

 

Nyssa and Sara share a bunk again. It’s almost innocent again; they might be twenty, but there is something intensely childish that bleeds through at night. Clinging to warmth and friendship; Nyssa was never very good with friendship before Sara.

In the end, it’s organic and predictable. Sara is leaning against her; they were fighting, Sara won. They are so close; Nyssa can smell Sara’s sweet; sweet and watery. She leans up and kisses her; it’s quick and demanding and suddenly she is pushing Sara against the wall, hand on her breast, gasping against her. That first time it’s hurried and desperate and pierced with Sara’s careful, demanding cries.

“Sing,” Nyssa pants into Sara’s ear, biting the ear lobe as she crouches down to kneel in front of Sara’s groin. Sara spreads her legs more; her knees buckle as Nyssa kisses the inside of her thigh, and then closer to the heat.

Nyssa likes calling her bird, or canary, and she likes making her sing. Sara is loud, and Nyssa likes it; it’s a validation that she is doing it right. And Sara keening her name at night fulfills her desire for recognition. She grins and hungrily consumes Sara as Sara pushes her hips higher, seeking more friction from Nyssa.

“Call me the canary,” she tells Ra Al Ghul. She shares a grin with Nyssa; her father knows now. But he does not care. He just makes Canary swear her solemn vow and begins sending her on missions. Nyssa accompanies her on her first assassination. She watches with a twisted excitement as Sara loses a little more of the shine in her eyes. Her hands are covered in blood, but Nyssa washes if off for her and kisses them clean. Nyssa thumbs the tears off Sara’s cheek and kisses her; Sara leans into the kiss, like an addict into her vice.

“Don’t ever leave me,” Nyssa murmurs into Sara’s touch.

“Never,” Sara promises

And Nyssa believes her, because right there and then Sara believes herself too.

It’s only later, when she hears about an earthquake and remembers her father’s addiction.

Only later, will she remember how to let go.

 


End file.
